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The green paper for SEN and disability states that those children who currently have a statement, less than 3% of children with SEN, will have an education, health and care plan (EHCP) under the new system. There are also plans to improve achievement for children who are disadvantaged through pastoral care. So far, however, there are only very vague indications about how SEN will be provided for in children who fall into neither of the above categories and have less severe SEN. There will be a lot of children in this lower level category of need! Many of these children will have very real SEN requiring specialist support.

I have commented regularly about the limp and woolly provision currently available to unstatemented children with SEN through the school action and school action plus categories of the graduated response process of our current system for meeting SEN. Yet the new system promises to scrap these classifications replacing them with a new tier of provision. Children will be ‘lumped together’ in this category, with some receiving pastoral care because they are disadvantaged, and others receiving support for SEN through ‘better teaching’ and schools sharing best practice. Also, the voluntary sector will be brought in to carry out so far unspecified roles. Remember, this new system will be implemented by health and education services that have undergone savage cuts and will draw heavily on untrained support from the voluntary sector. I don’t believe it is possible to improve provision for children with SEN and disabilities by cutting specialist services and replacing these with an untrained voluntary sector.

I can see a lot of children who need specialist intervention for their SEN receiving little more than pastoral support if the school has nothing else to offer, leading to misery and failure for thousands of children. How do I know? This is exactly what happened to my son under the deeply flawed but infinitely more robust graduated response of our current system.

The lack of clarity surrounding this is simply not good enough. Everyone has the opportunity to influence these policies by taking the opportunity to make representations to the consultation, and write to their MP to ask how, in detail will the plans be funded and implemented.

The Green Paper on SEN and Disability, issued yesterday, has caused some furore as parents and children, schools, health and education workers and other stakeholders attempt to take in its implications for the future. I for one have been thinking a lot about the report.

The most pressing thing for me is this: as the parent of children who have statements, I am very interested in the Education, Health and Care plans which will cover a child from birth to the age of 25. If done right I see huge potential for supporting a child through school and into work. The Green Paper detailed that the assessment for these plans is to be carried out over a day, with professionals coming to the child rather than having a number of assessments carried out at different locations and over a period of months. That is all very well, but when you have a child who needs a statement – or similar support, it is vitally important that assessment is both accurate and appropriate. Clearly, there is room for improvement in the length of time statutory assessment (or similar assessments) will take, but they are lengthy for good reasons. Assessing a child with complex needs is complicated and it is time consuming… Most of all it is very hard work for the child, who can find assessment very stressful. Sometimes just one speech therapy assessment can take one, two or even three hours. Other assessments can be similarly time consuming if done well. Children who have statements, or who would need an Education, Health and Care plan will need a series of appropriate assessments, and it is very important that this is done right. It cannot be rushed simply to save money or to make the system more efficient.

Yesterday, as a parent who commented on the original Green Paper call for views, I received this email from the DfE:

‘As you may be aware, this morning we published our Green Paper Support and aspiration: a new approach to special educational needs and disability.

You helpfully responded to the call for views launched last September as we began our work to develop our Green Paper and I would be very pleased to hear from you again. Please respond to the consultation and let us know what you think of our proposals.

If you would like more information, please visit our website for the full text of the Green Paper, the consultation and other associated documents http://www.education.gov.uk

Best wishes

Ella Joseph

Deputy Director

Special educational needs and disability

Department for Education’

Evidently we still have an opportunity to collectively make comments on the Green Paper. I am heartened that there will, hopefully be an equivalent plan to the statement, and that this is not simply to be scrapped and also that this will be protected by legislation. If enough of us continue to comment during the green paper consultation period, between now and June, and if we do so loudly enough, (even if we did not comment on the original call for views), then I do believe we can affect the eventual outcome and the legislation. Also, the document is very aspirational, and I still can’t see where the funding and the well trained health and education professionals to put these things into practice will come from, bearing in mind that the green paper will rely heavily on services that have been savagely cut. I am deeply worried about the government’s plans to bring in an untrained and unpaid voluntary sector into the identification and meeting of SEN. I think it will take a lot of pressure from the general public to get the government to sort these things out so that our children with SEN and disability can have successful outcomes!

We are in danger of losing speech & language therapy services for children with Developmental Verbal Dyspraxia (DVD). The NHS Ealing consultation document has this to say about the matter.

‘CHILDREN WITH RARE SPEECH & LANGUAGE DISORDER
MAY BE MISSING OUT ON SPECIALIST NHS SERVICES

Children with Developmental Verbal Dyspraxia (DVD) may not be reaching their full potential due to a lack of specialist services in London, according to a consultation launched this week.

This relatively rare speech and language disorder can have long-term implications if children do not have the right therapy early on in childhood. A new service specific to their needs would, therefore, be in their best interests, as well as highly cost-effective for the NHS and local authorities.

NHS Ealing is running the consultation on behalf of the NHS in London. It offers pupils, parents and carers, health, education, speech and language professionals and the wider public the opportunity to have their say about proposals for future services.

It also seeks to understand what potential service users, providers and commissioners (NHS and local education authorities) would want from a new service.

The consultation follows the suspension in July 2007 of a service run by the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust at the Nuffield Speech and Language Unit in Ealing. NHS Ealing then commissioned a review of the demand for specialist services for children with severe speech and language disorders in London.

Now it has developed six service options that could help to meet this need in future, with detailed input from a wide range of interested parties.

These options include building on a service currently delivered at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital (RNTNEH), while the London Specialised Commissioning Group determines longer-term future services for children with DVD.

The recent film ‘The King’s Speech’ has captured the public imagination and has brought to the fore the issue of speech and language impairment. Well dressed and attractive actors portray the story of King George VI and his struggle to overcome his stammer with the help of philanthropic speech therapist Lionel Logue.

The Guardian today runs this article http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/feb/06/speech-therapy-spending-cuts?CMP=twt_gu . It expresses hope that the film will ‘boost the Giving Voice campaign and highlight the social benefits of speech and language therapy (SLT).’ Logue was a philanthropist who used the money charged to his richer clients to fund therapy for poorer people. It is said that he never turned anyone away who asked for his help. This is laudable, as is the charity Giving Voice. However, I am horrified that such an essential service is being down graded to being a charitable case. The speech and language therapy services have historically been undervalued in the NHS, being under resourced and it is usual for long waiting lists to exist for children requiring therapy. Often the window of opportunity for effective treatment is diminished or lost as children wait. When you add up the social cost of children who do not have the right treatment for speech and language impairment, in terms of crime, lost job opportunities, benefit costs, it runs into billions of pounds. When you consider the costs of running an effective speech and language therapy service for all, (mere millions!), it is evident that we must invest in our speech and language therapy services. The government is morally obliged to fund these services properly, and not to rely on charitable institutions.

It is nice to think about the King receiving speech therapy to overcome his stammer, but what about the rest of us? I urge everyone, parents, teachers, medical professionals and the wider public to respond to this consultation. We can’t afford not to do so!

For those of you who simply wish to read about special educational needs, education or disability issues etc, you should perhaps stop reading now because this post is quite unashamedly political in nature. I was eating breakfast this morning when on Radio 4 I heard yet another government minister/apologist blaming the government’s savage cuts on their ‘inheritance’ from Labour.

It struck me like an epiphany. I’ve got very fed up with hearing this argument recycled, time and time again. Of course they are talking about inheritance because they come from a class in which inheritance (Daddy’s millions) is their birthright, their experience or their expectation. These are people with no understanding whatsoever of what it is like to live in 21st century Britain (don’t forget 19 out of 23 members of the Cabinet are millionaires).

Now, just because I understand now why they think and speak in the way they do, does not mean I feel any less angry or insulted by being patronised in this manner. We are not ‘all in it together’! The society may look big from the top where the Prime Minister and his cronies sit but for people with disabilities and those caring for them our society can be a very lonely place.

My children’s inheritance was genetic conditions, physical, developmental and sensory disability. They are not cushioned from the realities of life by ‘Daddy’s millions’, but they have the same rights to quality of life, family life, and a decent and appropriate education which this government seeks to deny them.

So the next time you hear a government representative or minister speak, listen to the words they use, the callous catchphrases and the spin they employ to try to dupe the public into acceptance of their savagery. Do not be fooled, this is not about saving money to rescue the economy, it is ideological, and it is about deconstructing our public and social structure so that big business can move in and enable those at the top to profit. Today the government is talking about selling off the Forestry Commission. The forests are part of OUR inheritance, for the NATION! Which sector of society do you imagine can afford to buy a forest? Would you rather go to the New Forest or the MacDonald’s New Forest for your holidays (assuming you can afford one this year!)?

How about a catchphrase of my own?

COALITION GOVERNMENT – PUTTING THE GRRR INTO GUERRILLAMUM SINCE MAY 2010!

(And where is the Green Paper for Special Educational Needs and Disability!?)

Over the last two or three weeks you could not miss the dispute over student fees. It has been on our streets, on the radio and on the television. I don’t want to comment on the rights and wrongs of this, but another vital issue in Education is being missed. Nobody has yet marched through Whitehall, occupied buildings or caused a split in the coalition over the issue of Idayah Miller and her disgraceful treatment by the Harris Federation.

Idayah is a symptom of wider principles which are endangered at present. I’ve written before about the lack of safeguards and checks and balances for academies, particularly where it affects SEN. Idayah has been denied a place at the Crystal Palace Harris academy and was told (amongst other things) that in her wheelchair she would take up too much space in the corridor in the event of a fire. The Harris Federation have apologised for the ill judged words of the Head (though I note he hasn’t been disciplined) but crucially Idayah still does not have a place. The only options available to her Idayah are to appeal to the academy itself or to the Minister of State for Education. A recent article from the London Evening Standard can be seen here: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23903236-idayah-is-a-bright-child-one-of-a-spurned-minority.do

The academy cancelled the appeal and referred the family to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal (SENDT). Regular readers will know that I warned some time ago that academies do not have the same legal status in SEN Law as Local Authority controlled schools and that SENDT does not have any jurisdiction over them and they could not help Idayah. This leaves Idayah with a right of appeal either to the school, which has already made its views clear, or to the Minister of State for Education. If I were in her shoes I think I would far rather go to a SENDT tribunal (regular readers will know how harrowing I found SENDT!) than go to an appeal with a man who makes dodgy ideological decisions and changes laws he doesn’t agree with using terrorism legislation.

I don’t have first hand knowledge of Idayah Miller or her family and I don’t know about her particular circumstances. All my sources have come from the Press. However, I do have first hand knowledge of what it feels like to be a family with a disabled child or children. You can quite often feel that you are not a part of society and that some of the agencies that are there to help you are actually obstacles to getting the provision you need for your child. I did, however, see some real improvements under the last Labour administration and greater protection for the rights of disabled people i.e the Autism Act, the Equality Act and excellent initiatives such as Aiming High. It’s really worrying to hear the Prime Minister say he wants to get rid of the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Act reflecting our values. The evidence since his government came to power is that their values include ignoring, marginalising, and removing benefits from those who have disabilities. Social mobility? Not if you are disabled, it seems.

I wish that Idayah had had one percent of the coverage given to the university fees debate. I wish that we could also see the same degree of pressure put on the government as has been used to argue against the schools sports partnership cuts or child benefit. Is it that people don’t care? Or that in financially straitened times people look only to their own needs? What about the Big Society? Or does it not apply to people with disabilities?

The government have a chance to prove me wrong. The Green Paper on SEN is due soon. (Transparency website!!!!!). Sarah Teather has a chance to put some of these wrongs right and lets hope she does.

In the meantime, please re-tweet. Please try to raise the profile for the issues I have raised. If you know somebody famous, or anyone with influence, or who has a big Twitter following (even better!!!) then send this post on to them. Next time this could happen to somebody you love. This is the thin end of the wedge.

At the moment the government is not doing anything about this case (or others like it) because they think nobody cares and they can get away with allowing these organisations to fail disabled children. It’s cheaper.

The Green Paper for SEN and disability is due to be published soon and my wish list would be:

• Inclusive schools admissions policies – schools should not be able to socially engineer their intake, and children with SEN and disabilities should be able to attend mainstream schools or special schools according to their needs
• An independent appeals procedure – independent of the school heads, governors, and of the Minister of State for Education.
• Retain SENDT and widen its scope to deal with appeals from Local Authority controlled schools, academies and free schools (when they come in).
• Retain the statement of SEN and the rights it confers on children. Widen availability of process to identify and make provision for children with SEN because appropriate assessment is currently far too difficult to obtain.
• No selection in state funded schools – (do realise this is a more general wish, probably beyond remit of Sarah T…)
• No devolved funding for statemented children – all statements should be funded properly by the State.

The lack of comment from the Opposition is also a worry and I would like to see some of our Shadow Cabinet getting involved in this very important debate.

A worrying aspect of this report is that it advocates limiting the use of teaching assistants (TAs) in class, suggesting that extensive use of TAs could even be damaging, particularly in the case of children with Special Educational Needs.What do you think about this?( See my comment on the Education Update page.)

A good TA has often been all that has stood between our children and failure. I know this to be true because they WERE failing before they had TA support.

An impartial examination of the role of TAs in education must be carried out before any further changes are made. Reform is a self-declared right-thinking organisation, set up by a current Conservative government minister. They are clearlly not impartial and my view of teh report is that they set off from an ideological viewpoint i.e Cutting costs and then looked for evidence to support it. The worrying thing is that they have influence over the Government (or is it the other way round!)

Please please please either responsd to the NAS or respond on here, it really is important. Whilst you are on the NAS website please take a look at what the Government are trying to do to the Autism Act, watering down the statutory guidance to reduce it’s funding implications.

There has been a lot of talk about how election pledges have been broken on tuition fees and on child benefit. Lots of column inches, hours of radio and television and bucket loads of spin. It was hard to watch TV, listen to the radio or read a paper without seeing the DPM telling of his angst and regret.

Almost unnoticed except for a small article in The Guardian, see it here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/oct/24/michael-gove-pupil-premium – was the news that the Minister of Education had revealed that the funding for the ‘Pupil Premium’ was not in fact ‘new money’ but would largely come out of other schools funding . Why is this important? It’s important because the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Education Minister have all previously said that it would come from outside the Education budget. Was it a mistake, sophistry or downright deception? I suppose we will never know.

What I do know is that through skilful spin it has not emerged as a big issue and was not widely reported. Because of this the government’s media monitors/advisers will clap themselves on the back and say that nobody is making a fuss about this so you can go ahead and push on and cut more money from budgets for poor or disadvantaged pupils . It’s cynical, nasty and demonstrates their true colours.

You can’t do anything about the parliament at the moment because the first thing the government did was to fix the election term and make 51% the margin for a vote of no confidence. You can however influence them by campaigning in the media. I admire the skill of the Conservative spin doctors because they have made the Liberal members of the cabinet take most of the heat. They do have a weakness though in that we have seen the Prime Minister have some spectacular wobbles when public opinion goes very much against them eg. Child Benefit.

If we want a society in which we look after the vulnerable and believe in an equitable (not ‘FAIR’ ) education system we need to say so now. We need coverage in the papers, radio and on TV and then we can make this happen. I haven’t seen any money being taken from Free Schools and Academies for the few, when there are so many schools which need appropriate funding. Free Schools are not about education they are about social selection and elitism. Don’t believe me, take a trip to the Conservative Home website article on admissions policy and see what will come if we don’t object now.

I don’t believe that the case for these cuts in education has been proved. The Conservative spin campaign is masking the nasty ideology behind the re-engineering of our education system into a social and educational elitist organisation paid for by our money. The next thing to ‘go’ (ie change irrevocably) will be the admissions code. Remember you saw it here first.